Tag: teachers

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Accountability education and schooling folly government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Reading, Writing & Racketeering

schools, corruption, D.C., Washington, education, cheating, incentives, teachers, union

When I attended a public school — many decades ago, in a galaxy far, far away — teachers told students that cheating was unacceptable and would be punished.

Harshly.

Today, the idea has students laughing — all the way to graduation.

Last year, after DC Public Schools officials breathlessly announced massive improvements in graduation rates, several honest teachers broke ranks, and an investigation uncovered massive fraud: a whopping one of every three graduates across the city resulted from falsified records. 

Many students played hooky for a third or even half the school year. Administrators also pressured teachers to improve grades to hike the graduation rate.

“The problem,” Washington Post columnist Colbert King concluded, “is systemic indeed.”*

You see, employment evaluations and cash bonuses for teachers and administrators were — and still are — tied in part to student graduation stats. It turns out that an incentive to good work can also serve as an incentive to cheat. Could it be that government employees grading their own work does not encourage honesty?

Just months after confirmation of the worst fears of public school corruption, new allegations against teachers and administrators at Roosevelt High School more than suggest fudging attendance records is ongoing.

“This growing environment of fear and mistrust,” asserts Elizabeth Davis, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, “has never been addressed and continues to be a disservice to students and teachers.”

City officials have had plenty of time to address the issue. And of the common sense idea that the best way to avoid fear and mistrust is to follow the rules?

Crickets.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Nor is the fraudulent behavior limited to dishonestly boosting graduation rates. Former DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson resigned back in February after it became public knowledge that his daughter jumped 600 other students on a waiting list for her school. A recent Post story about enrollment fraud, whereby non-​residents grab spots at prestigious schools such as the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, without paying the non-​resident fee, was entitled, “Stop enrollment fraud? D.C. school officials are often the ones committing it.” Two-​thirds of pending cases involve a current or past DCPS employee.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies responsibility Second Amendment rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Self-​Defense, Implausible?

gun, gun free, school zone, control, schools, teachers, Israel, defense, gun control

Don’t take a GUN-​FREE ZONE sign to a gun fight. 

Whenever there’s a horrific incident of mass murder, advocates of citizen disarmament blame the right to protect oneself against armed attackers. The thinking seems to be that if we make it illegal for all civilians to have guns, bad guys willing to kill people will also refrain from using guns as they try to kill people.

This is implausible.

And if you do not see its implausibility immediately regarding firearms, consider drugs. Not taking them, but the war on same. Drugs didn’t vanish upon prohibition. Neither would guns if prohibited.

President Trump argues that students would be safer were schools a harder target. Why not arm well-​trained teachers? “If you had a teacher who was adept with the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly.” He’s right.

Not a new idea, of course. It’s been argued, for example, by the NRA, whose chairman says that the way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun. 

This idea is being practiced right now — in Israel.

As Tzvi Lev argues at the Arutz Sheva 7 site, Israel proves the NRA’s point. 

Even Israel — where Arab communities are “rife with illegal weapons” despite their illegality — has not always been quick to recognize that it’s better to have lots of armed civilians when terrorists start shooting at civilians. But after terrorists attacked a school in 1974, the government began arming and training teachers — somehow failing to defer to the terrorists’ preference for gun-​free zones. 

In both of the only-​two school shootings in Israel since then, teachers killed the attackers. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense education and schooling folly general freedom tax policy

Money (for Us) Good, Profit (for Them) Bad

Teacher's Union

“One thing that we’ve done,” Dennis McBride of Support our Schools-​Wauwatosa told a crowd at a free event hosted by the non-​profit Wisconsin Public Education Network, “is we’ve made sure every time one of our legislators pops up his or her head above the foxhole, we’re there to shoot at them.”

The crowd laughed, reports the watchdog John K. MacIver Institute, which ran the story under the headline, “Panelist Jokes About Shooting Legislators at Public Education Summit.”

No worries, though: it was just a metaphor.

The genuinely kooky thoughts were less figurative.

One speaker encouraged the audience never to say the two words, “Scott Walker,” for fear of giving “the Wisconsin governor” higher name-recognition.

“Some of the first voucher supporters,” asserted Jonas Persson of the Center for Media and Democracy, “outside of this kind of new right core group of ideologues and wealthy entrepreneurs, were white supremacists.…”

Incredibly, he insisted that this movement “drew most of its support from, quote, ‘white flight areas*.’”

Somehow, no one mentioned voucher program successes, or the grassroots support for vouchers in African-​American communities.

“The ultimate goal is about breaking down public schools and to be honest with you,” said Jennifer Epps-​Addison of Wisconsin Jobs Now/​Schools and Communities United, “it’s about profiting off of the education of our kids.”

Heavens! Making a profit by serving parents and children “consuming” education? Unthinkable.

Meanwhile, Epps-​Addison pushed the “Wisconsin Freedom Compact,” which calls for doubling the tax dollars going to public education.

Will she guarantee that no one will profit from that?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article contained the term “white flight Aryans” in Jonas Persson’s quote. After review of notes and audio recordings, the phrase has been corrected to read “white flight areas.” The context and overall significance of Persson’s statements are not changed, but the quote is updated for accuracy.

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Teacher's Union

 

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Second Amendment rights

Let Teachers Bear Arms

We have no sure way to prevent such horrors as the recent shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. We can’t predict which very few of the very many persons with grievances will choose to vent their rage by loosing a hail of bullets at innocents. And schools would be unable to function if they were so locked down as to eliminate the possibility of a gunman walking through the door.

We can, however, take measures to reduce the likelihood and severity of such an attack. We can also prepare to defend ourselves if the worst happens. When someone is shooting at you and the students in your care, the best chance of stopping the shooter within seconds — when the police are minutes away, at best — is to shoot back. The more persons able to shoot back, the better.

It makes sense for appropriately trained teachers and other school personnel to be armed and ready to confront an assailant. This isn’t just a theoretical proposal. In 2008, the Harrold school district in Northwest Texas introduced a “guardian plan” under which some teachers and other staffers carry concealed handguns. A few other school districts have followed suit. But the practice is far from common in Texas or in the nation at large.

Says Harrold’s superintendent, “Nothing is 100 percent. But what we do know is that we’ve done all we can to protect our children.”

The Harrold district’s provisions for self-​defense are controversial. They shouldn’t be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.